Before legacy holding company Interpublic Group (IPG) was acquired by Omnicom (now the world’s largest holding company), IPG had put some of its inventory on clearance. As a result, RGA was among the few IPG agencies sold.
Founded in 1977, the agency, then known as R. Greenberg Associates, was originally an independent production company, best known for its visual effects in title and opening designs for classic films such as Superman (1978) and Alien (1979). After spending 23 years under IPG, RGA returned to independence last year, this time privately owned by Truelink Capital.
According to Robin Forbes, global CEO of RGA, the process of selling the agency took around nine months and concluded in March 2025.
“R/GA has always been an outlier inside a holding company,” he told Campaign. “The holding company model has often focused on slotting agencies into specific silos. As a result of that, we were always a little bit of an anomaly in that model.”
Tiffany Rolfe, chair and global CCO, RGA, said that the agency is lucky to have always been a “strong brand,” with the ability to “carve out” itself.
“I always say we slipped — Indiana Jones-style — under the wall, and we’re able to get out,” she said to Campaign.
Since returning to independence, the digital agency’s numbers have skyrocketed. Compared to the first half of 2025, revenue from the second half of 2025 expanded by over 30%. Six of the agency’s top 10 clients collectively grew 40% YoY from 2024 to 2025. Compared to Q1 of last year, R/GA’s Q1 of 2026 experienced a revenue growth of 25% YoY.
Rolfe attributed the agency’s post-sale success to the “spirit” of being independent, or getting out what you’re putting in.
“Independence has allowed us to transform and change the work,” she explained. “[It] gives you that freedom to let go of things, because you’re not part of some structure that you’re expected to behave in.”
Client communication
When news of IPG’s plans to sell RGA was leaked, it wasn’t just clients who were surprised; as it turns out, RGA’s leadership had no idea and were already starting their own process of selling.
“Clients, who didn’t realise we were going through our own process — were concerned that we would get caught up in the sale of IPG and the integration,” Forbes explained. “They were concerned about us preserving our capabilities and our talent [and] about client conflicts.”
Rolfe, who mentioned that both she and Forbes had an hour’s notice of the news before it was published, told Campaign she knew that the only way to address the agency’s concerned clients was with transparency.
“We could be very open with our teams that this [sale] is happening,” she said. “Because of that, it helped us to be transparent about it all, and we had already talked people through everything that was happening; our clients as well.”
In the end, because the actual outcome of being sold was to become independent, Forbes said that clients responded positively to RGA’s shift to independence.
Rolfe added that RGA’s journey of returning to the independent side of the agency world can be seen as a “case study” for brands and clients.
“It was significant that we were able to do it in this moment for ourselves and transform,” she said. “There’s a lot of trust with us to help [clients] in some of these changes as well.”
To PE or not to PE
To PE or not to PE? That was the question for R/GA.
Although this wouldn’t be the agency’s first rodeo when it came to being sold. In 1995, RGA was sold to True North Communications to “help fund a transition to become a digital agency”. The company was then acquired by IPG in 2001, and RGA with it.
However, this time would be different, as R/GA is now what it set out to be 30 years ago: a digital agency. Other contributors were the various stereotypes that follow private equity firms: that they don’t care about the businesses they invest in, that they’re just financial engineers.
According to Forbes, there was some hesitation regarding the idea of partnering with a PE firm. However, as conversations with potential PE candidates continued, both R/GA and IPG warmed up to the idea.
“It was really, in the end, a joint decision between us and IPG,” he told Campaign.
One factor of Truelink Capital, the PE firm that ultimately purchased R/GA, that stood out to Forbes was that the firm had countered one of the stereotypes it faces. According to Forbes, Truelink had given itself homework, researching the advertising and marketing industry. The firm also invited RGA’s global leadership team to co-invest as a “partial management buyout."
“That was something at the outset of the process, nine months prior, that we didn’t actually expect. We didn’t think we’d be given that opportunity,” Forbes said, and added that the team took up Truelink’s offer and co-invested.
Other than the professional connection that stood out to R/GA’s leadership, Rolfe’s personal connection with Truelink was the cherry on top. When she and Forbes met with the PE firm’s partners, she learned that, like her, one of them was from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not only that, they went to the same grade school and graduated high school the same year.
Rolfe added that, after the conversation, the partner sent her a picture of the school’s yearbook, with both of their fifth-grade portraits on the exact same page.
“It was like a sign for both of us,” she said to Campaign. “Sometimes, you need the universe to point you in the right direction.”
Source: Campaign US
